I believe mystery and paradox are the signature of truth. I believe what we do matters more than what we say, and who we are matters most of all. I believe in unlikely healings and impossible resurrections.
Don’t be mad, but I think God wants us to be happy
Dear Reader,
Every day I wake up and it is still summer. Like, maybe (mayyybe) halfway through summer here in SC. Yesterday I was looking for a light cardigan but touching my sweaters made me angry.
I am just not a sweet summer child.
And yet, things feel different for me this summer. Last summer I read my friend Courtney’s book Happy Now; this summer I feel like I’m living it. I think of how Kate Bowler gives us permission to just let life be absurd, and suddenly my own heat-induced rage is making me giggle. I remind myself that Pleasure Activism matters every time my body and heart tell me to slow things down and do something fun. I sing along with The Chicks and the college students I work with at the cafe. Over and over, in awe and gratitude, I keep listing to myself the many friends who are always teaching me how to be a friend, making me laugh, and giving me hope.
It’s difficult to write profoundly about happiness, and I don’t have time to do it today. But everything doesn’t have to be profound. I hope it is enough sometimes to put a pin in a time and place and say into the Internet void of chaos and doom, “just FYI, I am happy!” I am grateful. I feel alive. I know other people’s ordinary happiness has mattered to me even when I could not access my own.
I think a lot of us have allowed the Prosperity Gospel preachers to rob us of something precious, which is the truth that God loves us and wants us to be happy. I deeply believe that joy, satisfaction, peace, and connection are not only signs that we are “doing God’s will” and being rewarded for it. I believe they are God’s will.
(This, of course, requires me to believe that God doesn’t get what God wants very, very much of the time, which you might find theologically awkward but I have mostly made my peace with.)
In any case, if God doesn’t have a sense of humor, play, or a preference for happiness, I am probably in for some awkward post-death conversations.
Happy summer. Here are a whole bunch more links to things. Let me know if you’re rageful or happy or both.
peace, love, bread, and wine,
Lyndsey
3 Things that aren’t self-promotion:
1. I’m trying to figure out how to save podcast episodes for all time so I can refer to this one over and over.
2. I read this book in approximately one day and wish I’d had it when I first got sick. It also inspired me to put a laundry basket in the living room because that’s where a certain person likes to leave their laundry and now we can have a tidy space without fighting!
3. My new “summer doldrums”/seasonal depression/heat-rage hack is Christmas books and movies. Is there any purer form of escapism than this. I totally enjoyed this one and now you know that I am a reader of trashy escapist tastes.
Me, around and about:
I got to speak at the Wild Goose Festival of art, justice, and spirituality about what I learned from chronic illness about living in a crumbling empire.
The Faithfulness of Regular Care for Faith + Lead: On sharing 6 A.M. walks with God
Me, Bite Size (a few favorite Instagram posts):
I love to write a Credo every few months as a writing exercise, to mark the season I’m in for myself, and as an introduction to new followers. (I’d love to see you write your own “I believes” and tag me!)
By far the most cheerful thing I’ve ever made about seasonal summer depression
An IG Story of the 9 months of book writing from proposal submissions to final drafts!
ICYMI - This month’s email letters:
Who is My Body and Other Crumbling Empires for?
On the many of us who feel lost in the cracks
Does care really count?
On the types of work—and love—we forget to see
Am I allowed to have Disability Pride?
On bodies, privilege, and accidental communities
Lyndsey Medford
I believe mystery and paradox are the signature of truth. I believe what we do matters more than what we say, and who we are matters most of all. I believe in unlikely healings and impossible resurrections.
Dear Reader, This time last year was the first time I’d ever heard of Disability Pride month. I had just started privately calling myself “disabled” weeks earlier. I don’t know if I felt proud. I think I felt relieved. I let July pass me by. In retrospect, it would’ve been a great opportunity to simply say, Hey! I’ve shifted how I think about my identity lately! I’m not ashamed of this aspect of myself. In fact, I wrote posts along those lines, posted them, *and then deleted them* more than...
Dear Reader, You can tell how I’m doing from the state of my house plants. I am not a naturally caring person. I struggle sometimes to care for the plants on their own schedule and feel irritated that they need so much (?!) from me. And the days when the house plants seem too fussy and too annoying for me to water them are the days when I have turned that same attitude upon myself. Living with chronic illness, I’ve become a person in need of extraordinary amount of care compared to the person...
Dear Reader, Today is such a surreal day! My book, My Body and Other Crumbling Empires: Lessons for Healing in a World that is Sick, is available to preorder! (The cover is below but I’m putting it farther down for *suspense reasons*. You are the very first to see her online!) This is a book for those who feel like a remnant. Like your body is in tatters. Or like your faith is hardly recognizable for what it was before. Or like you are clinging to a life raft at the edge of a dying world. Or,...